The widow of a July 7 suicide
bomber yesterday launched a High Court bid to be represented at the victims’
inquest - saying she had also suffered the loss of a loved one in the atrocity.

Hasina
Patel, whose husband was terrorist mastermind Mohammad Sidique Khan, is
seeking legal aid to challenge the coroner’s decision to exclude Khan’s
death from the hearing for the 52 victims of the 2005 London bombings.

If
the mother of one’s application is granted, October’s long-awaited
inquest could be delayed by months of legal wrangling, to the distress
of those who have waited more than five years for it to take place.

Lawyers
for Miss Patel claim there should be ‘no material distinction’ between
her and the families of those killed, because she ‘equally suffered the
loss of a relative’.

But the move will anger bereaved
families, who do not want the deaths of the terrorists included in the
same inquest as the 52 innocents
whose lives they took.

Miss Patel hopes to overturn the
decision made by Lady Justice Hallett
in May to hold a separate hearing
into the deaths of the four bombers - Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30,
Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Hasib Hussain, 18, and Jermaine Lindsay, 19.

The Government has already agreed to give legal aid to the families
of the 52 victims. But Miss Patel’s request for equal funding was refused in May this year.

Aftermath: The bus blown up by Hasib Hussain in Tavistock Square, where 13 people were killed

Afterwards,
her solicitor Imran Khan said: ‘There appears to be no material
distinction between the victims’ families and the position of my
clients as family members who, through no fault of their own, have
equally suffered the loss of a relative.’

Yesterday Ian
Wise QC, representing
Miss Patel, told the High Court that she wanted legal aid ‘so that she
can be represented to make representations on the resumption of the
inquest into the death of her husband and whether it should be joined
to the existing inquest’.

He
referred to Miss Patel as the wife of the ‘alleged ringleader’, saying
she could help the inquest by providing information.
But Lord Justice Thomas demanded to know what information
Miss Patel had that she had not already told police, warning that any
application to include the bombers in the inquest would cause a delay.

Clifford
Tibber of Oury Clark Solicitors, which represents several victims’
families, said: ‘They have waited for more than five years for this and
for them to wait any longer would be devastating for them.’

Miss
Patel, who was born in Dewsbury,
West Yorkshire, married Khan in 2002 after they met at Dewsbury
College, where both were studying to work in the education sector.

She has described her husband as a ‘good person’ who was brainwashed
by Islamic militants.